We renegades start out with the literal, and if that doesn't work then we slip over into the allegorical perspective to see if and how the allegory relates to literal concepts that can be grasped by the human mind...AND if the intent was for it to be grasped at all...
Example: We tend to believe that when the Lord said the duration of something is a thousand years, and that number is repeated in relation to the same period of events, then it's probably meant to be taken...literally:
Revelation 20:2-7
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received [his] mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This [is] the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Now, if I were brain dead, then I might hold to the idea that these verses, which are sequentially aligned with one another (hint, hint), mean something other than what they say. However, I see not even a hint to the idea that we might logically assume into these some weird and wonky interpretation of the objects of the time span mentioned are anything OTHER than what they say.
Systematic Theology method of study also bears this out in a number of doctrines that have been weirded out into some wonky and freakish interpretations by use of the battering rams of allegoricalization swindling and hustle in order to make the scripture fit some pre-conceived notions about doctrines and prophesies that go so far as to even corrupt the very nature of God's sense of justice (I would mention a flowery acronym at this point as a case in point, but will abstain since there are some who subscribe to the extremes of that outlandish system of thought that not even Calvin himself believed, even though he is credited with it all).
MM
Example: We tend to believe that when the Lord said the duration of something is a thousand years, and that number is repeated in relation to the same period of events, then it's probably meant to be taken...literally:
Revelation 20:2-7
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received [his] mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This [is] the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Now, if I were brain dead, then I might hold to the idea that these verses, which are sequentially aligned with one another (hint, hint), mean something other than what they say. However, I see not even a hint to the idea that we might logically assume into these some weird and wonky interpretation of the objects of the time span mentioned are anything OTHER than what they say.
Systematic Theology method of study also bears this out in a number of doctrines that have been weirded out into some wonky and freakish interpretations by use of the battering rams of allegoricalization swindling and hustle in order to make the scripture fit some pre-conceived notions about doctrines and prophesies that go so far as to even corrupt the very nature of God's sense of justice (I would mention a flowery acronym at this point as a case in point, but will abstain since there are some who subscribe to the extremes of that outlandish system of thought that not even Calvin himself believed, even though he is credited with it all).
MM